George Austen: Jane Austen’s almost forgotten, invisible brother

“We have this comfort, he cannot be a bad or a wicked child,” George Austen writing about his second son, George

George Austen, Jane’s second oldest brother is an enigma, rarely glimpsed and hardly known to the world. No image exists of him, which is why the image I used for this post has no face to speak of. George Austen was thought to be mentally or physically impaired, or suffering from an infirmity. Nearly ten years older than Jane, Claire Tomalin wrote that he still lived in Steventon village in 1776 (See Boris’s comment in the comment section) and that the very young Jane knew him.

“He could walk, and he was not a Down’s Syndrome child, or he would not have lived so long, lacking modern medication. Because Jane knew deaf and dumb sign language as an adult— she mentioned talking “with my fingers” in a letter of 1808— it is thought he may have lacked language; it would not have stopped him joining in the village children’s games.” – Claire Tomalin, Jane Austen, A Biography

The Austens produced remarkably hardy children, for all survived their childhood. At forty-one, Jane was the youngest to die. George, who survived to a ripe old age, was cared for along with his Uncle Thomas (a mentally defective person), by Francis Cullum, who lived in Monk Sherborne, a nearby Hampshire village. Although George was not mentioned in Austen family letters, he was not totally forgotten, for the family contributed to his upkeep. The wildly sentimental film, Becoming Jane, shows George as an active member of the family, walking with Jane in the woods and attending church with them, but an article in JASNA rightly states, “It is not likely that he attended church with the Austens, as depicted in the movie.”

Jane, George, Rev. Austen, Eliza de Feuillide and Cassandra after church service in Becoming Jane.

After Jane’s death, mention of George disappeared from several family sources. John and Edith Hubback in Jane Austen’s Sailor Brothers wrote: “In a family of seven all turned out well, two rose to the top of their profession, and one was—Jane Austen.” Their math is obviously wrong. In the Memoir of Jane Austen, her nephew James Edward Austen-Leigh mentions that James was the first brother and Edward the second. This historical oversight has outraged some authors, David Nokes in particular, whose reaction is described in a Washington Post review of his book, Jane Austen: A Life:

A second “family secret” hitherto little mentioned is the existence of Jane Austen’s brother George, 10 years older than Jane, who “never learned to speak” and was boarded out for the rest of his life in another Hampshire village along with Thomas Leigh, Mrs. Austen’s mentally defective brother. This George Austen (perhaps the origin of “poor Richard” Musgrave in Persuasion) long survived his sister Jane and lived on into his seventies. David Nokes devotes an indignant last chapter to “poor George” and contrasts the Austen family’s ruthless jettisoning of him — apart from payment of a small, regular fee for his upkeep — with their family’s rather sickening adulation, after Jane’s death, of their “dear angel” Aunt Jane — whose propensity for satire and malice was almost entirely played down, while her simple religious beliefs were elevated into near-canonization.

The Loiterer cautions us about first-hand accounts, saying they can be wildly inaccurate:

“There were eight children in the family and the second brother was George and not Edward who, in fact, was the third brother. George, apparently, was epileptic and may have been deaf and dumb as well. He simply was not allowed to join the family in their home. None of Jane’s existing letters mentions him—not one single time. (In spite of his infirmities, he outlived Jane by at least ten years!) Now, there is something to give one perspective on “first-hand accounts”. –The Loiterer

Another source of outrage for David Nokes was Mrs. Austen, who died in 1823. In her will she had divided the money from her South Sea Annuities equally among the surviving Austen children, with the exception of George.

“He, as usual, was excluded and forgotten. It was Edward Knight who, as an act of kindness, made over his share of the money ‘for the use of my brother George, being his full share of the £3,350 old South Sea Annuities. – David Nokes, p. 525

Francis Cullum, George caretaker, died in the spring of 1834. After his death, his son George took over the responsibilities of caring for George Austen, who died of dropsy in 1838. Once again, David Nokes writes with melodramatic flourish about the loving way in which Jane’s memory was perpetuated by her family, even as they neglected poor George:

“Less than twenty miles away [from Jane’s grave], Jane’s brother George was laid to rest in an unnamed grave in the churchyard of All Saints church, Monk Sherborne. In death, as in life, he was to be forgotten, his remains unmarked by any stone. Only George Cullum was in attendance at George Austen’s death. It was he who noted for the death certificate that George Austen was ‘a gentleman’. – Nokes, p. 526

I cannot express how much I disagree with David Nokes in this instance. The Austens arranged to have George and Cassandra’s brother, Thomas Leigh, looked after by a caring family, and supported these two family members financially. One imagines that with eight children, a boarding school, a small plot of land to tend to with chickens and a cow, and two livings as a clergyman, that the two elder Austens had their hands full overseeing their burgeoning household. The addition of a special needs child who required constant care would have added a great strain to their living situation.

Bedlam inmate shackled in irons, Bethelehem Royal Hospital, London

This was an age where few asylums for the mentally disabled or the physically disabled existed. People with infirmities were looked upon as defectives and many became sideshows at fairs or carnivals, or as beggars on the streets. It was a custom at this time to visit Bedlam and stare at the people in the lunatic asylum. In fact, there were very few institutions available during this era for people of special needs and very few places that could take them in. Bedlam was the only hospital of its kind in London during Jane’s lifetime. Workhouses and almshouses were the only other places where the physically and mentally handicapped could be deposited, and these were places that people strove to avoid at all cost. In addition, there has been a history since the beginning of time in almost all cultures that looked the other way when parents left their defective babies in the wild to die. (This situation still exists today.) Unlike David Nokes, my conclusion is that, given the era the Austens lived in, the family behaved in a remarkably responsible manner towards George, who lived a quiet life of peace and relative comfort for 72 long years. As for the inaccuracies in later biographies written by Austen family members, one wonders how effectively George had been hidden from view. Out of sight is out of mind, and these mistakes of omittance may well have been the natural result of – as David Nokes accused the Austens of doing – the extended family forgetting that George had ever existed.

Gentle reader: In honor of JASNA’s annual meeting in Philadelphia this week, this blog, Austenprose, and Jane Austen Today have devoted posts to Jane Austen and her siblings. This is the last of seven articles devoted to her brothers and sisters. Tomorrow, Laurel Ann and I will recommend several biographies on Jane Austen.

The last post in this interesting week but also the most touching one. Very informative, too, of course. I really can’t sympathize with the decision of the Austens to give George away to be looked after, but I can also understand the difficulties at keeping him at home.
Thanks again for all this precious material. I appreciated every post enormously! :)

Another insightful post, Vic. There’s always two sides to an argument. It’s good to know that George has been brought out of the shadows, so to speak. It’s admirable that JA scholars, biographers, bloggers continue to strive for truth in presenting the life of this brilliant woman. This week has been an informative journey into Austen’s family. Thanks Vic! :)

Thanks Vic for the excellent information. I remember reading the Nokes chapter on George and thinking this was a harsh and judgmental opinion on the Austen’s. It was a much different time with different social views, medical advice and assistance. I do however think it odd that Jane Austen never mentioned her brother George in any of her letters. Since she was so keen on the lives her own siblings, their families and everyone in her social circle, it seems a bit weird – almost like she didn’t know about him or was forbidden to speak of him.

I wonder about Jane’s silence as well, LA, and then I recall the many letters that have been destroyed. It’s all speculation, of course, but one does wonder if mentions of George were burned by later generations.

I agree that Nokes got a bit melodramatic in his depiction of how George Austen was treated by the rest of his family, judging their conduct by the very different views generally held today about the proper treatment for the disabled. And we are right to be understanding of the pressures the Austens faced.

An interesting counter-example, however, can be found in Eliza de Feuillide, the dashing cousin who eventually married Henry Austen.

Although many biographers (and some members of her own family) seem to have viewed Eliza as somewhat frivolous, she apparently never even considered sending away her only son, Hastings, who was also mentally disabled and subject to fits. She never gave up on him, never stopped mentioning him in her letters and trying to see signs of improvement. (He, unlike George, died at a fairly young age.)

Of course, Eliza’s circumstances were different than Mrs. Austen’s. She certainly had more free time; and Hastings was her only child, while Mrs. Austen had many others to focus and worry about.

But if was simply a matter of practicality to board George out, one has to wonder why he vanished so nearly completely from the record? It is hard to avoid drawing the conclusion that the Austen parents, at least, wanted to simply forget about this inconvenient son and found him on some level a source of shame. By contrast, Eliza’s behavior and her own words make it clear that she loved her son very much despite his disabilities and does not seem to have been at all ashamed of him. While this may have been unusual at the time, maybe it was not, for Eliza was not in any important sense a rebellious or unconventional person.

Kathleen, excellent observations. I sometimes wonder if it isn’t a matter of Sense and Sensibility, as it were. If the Austen parents were anything like my in-laws, you kept problems to yourself and never mentioned anything unpleasant. Eliza resembles my family more, and her warmth and outgoing nature might have given her the freedom to discuss her concerns with one and all. Eliza also experienced huge upheavals and losses in her life, which would make losing a son, even a disabled one, almost unbearable. The Austens to me seemed more stoic and self-contained. This still does not answer the question – why was George for all intent and purposes hidden from sight, and put out of mind?

It was a different time then… different social pratices, like the infant leaving to be nursed away for over a year. Most can’t imagine doing that yet for them they didn’t know any different as that is what was expected. Special needs individuals also had their own yet very limited resources available to their families. I suspect he had a good environment where he was placed to have lived over 70 years given medical and dental health of that era. Surely if it were a scandel about him there would be plenty to read about him.

It’s interesting the way that so many people assume that Jane Austen learned the deaf-and-dumb alphabet in order to communicate with her brother George. In the film ‘Becoming Jane’ she is seen ‘talking on her fingers’ with a very normal-looking young man.
However, the use of that alphabet would suggest that George was literate – which seems to me extremely unlikely.
In my forthcoming novel ‘I Was Jane Austen’s Best Friend’ I suggest that Jane, as a young girl, learned this in the hopes of doing something about her brother’s isolation from the family.
My own feeling about George is that he was probably suffering from cerebral palsy. He probably could have walked – otherwise he would not have lived so long as apparently the kidneys etc are affected by lack of walk, but he was probably brain-damaged. Do we have any evidence that he couldn’t talk, by the way, or is this all related to the one mention in Jane’s letters of knowing how to talk on her fingers?

Thank you for your very interesting features. I read the account of Edward with huge interest and agree with your conclusions.

To the quotation mentioned above from Claire Tomalin’s book “Jane Austen – A life” (chapter “1775”, p. 9) I would add the sentence where the author writes that George “… was occasionally at the parsonage as a small boy.” and makes a reference note No. 14 to a letter by Cassandra Austen to Susannah Walter, 8 Nov. 1772, AP, p. 28 in which Mrs. Austen writes of “having all four at home”, which must at that date have included George. This letter proves that George was de facto at home at the age of six.

This is a wonderful analysis of Nokes’ conclusions regarding George. It’s so hard to take our modern sentimentalities out of our judgments of 200 year old morality. I have long been interested in historical depictions of insanity and disorder and really appreciate Vic’s empathetic depiction of the Austen’s predicament.

This has been at the very least some of the most informative reading I have had the privledge to read! My search started as a means to find family with the “Nokes” name that I may be related to. Most of my immediate family is decaesed, and I have always felt like the “nokes” name has history behind it as it is not a common name like “Smith” or “Brown”, Any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated!! My father’s name was Curtis Eugene Nokes, His father- Robert Clinton Nokes. Again, Thank You!!

With the recent supposition that Jane Austen had Asperger’s Syndrome, which is certainly likely, I think it possible that George Austen had a more severe form of autism that also caused him to be non-verbal. As these conditions are hereditary, one could easly presume that Miss Austen’s uncle was similarly afflicted.

I’m commenting to this because I am stuck on a ferry, which is glued to it’s dock by a 40kt wind and the small issue of two (probably – but not certainly) Dutch sailors in the drink, somewhere nearby. The authorities don’t want any ships moving until they finish their search for the unfortunates. On the ferry, this means a) very slow wi-fi and b) free beer!

If you take Jane Austen’s implied knowledge of sign language as an indication that George was deaf — there’s a lot of assumptions there, but if you assume that much — then it certainly indicates he was not entirely exiled from the family. You don’t learn another language to communicate with someone you never see. If Jane learned sign language to talk to George, then surely there was frequent contact between him and the rest of the family.

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Hello, my name is Vic and I live in Richmond, VA. I work in program and professional development at Virginia Commonwealth University, and I have adored Jane Austen almost all of my life. I am a proud lifetime member of the Jane Austen Society of North America. This blog is a personal blog written and edited by me. I do not accept any form of cash advertising, sponsorship, or paid topic insertions. However, I do accept and keep books, DVDs and CDs to review.

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